


Homecoming

by Rachello344



Category: 91 Days (Anime)
Genre: Fix-It, Fluff, M/M, Requited Love, Running Away Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 12:03:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8055577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rachello344/pseuds/Rachello344
Summary: Angelo keeps waking up from nightmares, each one showing him ways his path could end, things that could happen despite his best efforts.  He isn't sure how much he's willing to sacrifice for his vengeance.  Not anymore.





	Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> If I have to fill this tag with fluff and _requited_ love myself, then so be it. I hope you all enjoy this after the pain of episode 10. Be strong everyone.

Angelo woke up, gasping for breath. Sweat clung coolly to his brow.  His heart pounded behind his ribs.  Turning, his eyes found Corteo, asleep in his bed.  His eyes were closed, his face relaxed.  He looked softer, younger like this, like the world was no longer weighing so heavily on his shoulders.

Angelo took a deep breath in before slowly, slowly letting it out. He closed his eyes.  Corteo was fine.  Safe, sleeping.

“Angelo?” Corteo murmured. Angelo’s eyes snapped back open.  Corteo was blinking bleary-eyed at him, squinting in the dark.  His eyes looked large without his glasses in the way, large and dark.  Beautiful, even.

“Everything’s fine,” he murmured. “Go back to sleep.”

Corteo shook his head, yawning almost despite himself. “You had a nightmare didn’t you?”

“How could you tell?”

Corteo smiled at him, warm and sweet. Angelo’s heart beat a little faster.  “You’re my best friend, no matter how long we spent apart.  I know you better than anyone.”  He scooted back, touching the space in front of him.  “Do you want to share?  Like we used to when you had a bad dream?”

Angelo felt warm all over, even as his chest felt tight. He needed to keep him safe.  From everything.  He nodded, getting up and slipping under the covers, facing Corteo.

For a quiet moment, they looked at each other, a comfortable silence settling between them. Angelo tilted his head closer—Corteo met him in the middle, their foreheads touching.

“I knew it,” his eyes closed, “something’s bothering you.”

Angelo sighed, his breath mingling with Corteo’s. “I want to protect you, but I don’t know if I can.”

Corteo smiled again. “As long as we’re affiliated with the mob, we won’t ever be safe.”

“You could be,” he said, voice low. “You could run, and they’d never be able to find you again.”

Corteo yawned, eyes closing. “Not without you.  I’m not going to leave you behind, Angelo.  I’m with you to the end.”

His breath caught. Even as Corteo’s breathing evened out in sleep, even as the night dragged on, he watched over him, thinking of what he wanted, what he could do.  He just wanted to keep Corteo safe, protect the last person he loved.

Eventually his eyes fell closed, and he slept until morning.

 

* * *

 

As they ate breakfast the next morning, Angelo tapped nervously at the table. “You know I gave you the money so you could be safe, right?”

Corteo sighed. “I know, but I still don’t want you to leave me out of things because I might get hurt.  You’re the reason I’m in this mess, and I’m not going to leave it unless you come with me.”

Angelo pushed some of his food around on his plate. Silence settled over them like a warm blanket.  When was the last time he felt this comfortable?  When was the last time he’d had a home like this?

But he wanted revenge…

“Corteo,” he hesitated. Corteo watched him expectantly, waiting for him to continue.  Haltingly, he tried again.  “I still want them dead, but…  I have a feeling…  If I keep going, you’re going to get hurt.”  He looked down, rubbing a finger over a scar in the table.  “I don’t want to lose the last family I have left.”

“What do you want to do?”

He scrubbed a hand over his face, running it through his hair, before he shook his head. “I don’t know.  I can’t think of a way to keep you safe while I kill them.  I don’t trust Ganzo.  Not with your life.”

When he looked back up, Corteo was smiling, his cheeks a little red. He pushed his glasses up, glancing away.  Angelo’s heart felt like bird wings, fluttering and light.  “Angelo, I know you already answered, but I’d like to ask again, so please humor me.”

He met his eyes again, and Angelo nodded, urging him on.

“Run away with me.” Corteo leaned forward.  “We can leave, run as far as we want, across the country maybe, and they’ll never be able to track us down.  You said so yourself.  If I can run, then you can run with me, can’t you?”

“I still want my revenge,” he said, reluctant. He couldn’t just give it up, could he?  Not when he was so close…

“Is living not enough?”

Angelo sighed. It sounded too good to be true.  He’d been living for revenge for so long, all he could see was his bloody path forward.  Vincent, Nero, Ganzo.  Each of them bleeding out before his eyes, a gunshot to the head or heart, dead for their crimes against his family.

But if he left… He could leave with Corteo, and they could start over together, find a new place for themselves.  Corteo could finally go to school, and he would—what?  What did he have to do that wasn’t killing or picking pockets?

“You could do anything you want,” Corteo said, answering his thoughts.

“Uncanny,” he muttered. Corteo laughed, soft and light, easier than he’d heard in the last three months.

“It was written all over your face.” Corteo rested his chin on his hand.  “You could become a performer.  You’re good at sleight of hand, and you’re an excellent actor.  Or you could try a bunch of things and see what you like best.  Maybe you could try cooking?”

“How does one even become an actor?” Angelo leaned back, considering.  “We’d need to go to California for that.  And I’d have to get some kind of experience under my belt before we got there…”

Corteo beamed, practically glowing with it. Angelo gripped the tabletop.  “Then?”

“I need to think about it,” he said, sighing. “It sounds nice, though, I’ll admit.”  Living with Corteo, away from harm, no longer needing to kill or steal to get what he wanted.  And they had plenty of money to make it across the country as long as they were careful.

“Take your time, but you don’t really have much.” Corteo winced.  “I wish you had more.”

 _I do, too_ , he thought.

 

* * *

 

Angelo watched the sun rise out his window, taking in the soft water color tones, pinks and violets and a pastel orange. He glanced back at the bed where Corteo was sleeping soundly, his breathing deep and even.

He kept dreaming of his death in a thousand different ways. In some of them, Nero discovered them and shot them both.  In others, it was Ganzo.  In the worst of them all, he was forced to pull the trigger.  The thought alone made him nauseous.  Killing Corteo was the worst thing he could possibly do.  There would be no life for him after that, no reason to keep going after his revenge was complete.

A world without Corteo was a world he refused to live in.

Corteo rolled toward him, his hand landing on the empty space beside him, cool now, after the time he’d been sitting at the window. His brow furrowed, and he blinked slowly, squinting into the room.  When he found Angelo, he relaxed.

“Come back to bed,” he mumbled. “It’s too early for you to be up.”

“Run away with me,” Angelo said.

Corteo froze. “What?”

“I want to run away with you. I’ll think of another way to get my revenge.  I’m sure we can figure something out.”  Angelo looked back out the window.  “I wasn’t lying to Ganzo.  He, at least, will be easy.  All I need to do is have you send the word that I’m dead.  The others…  I don’t know if there’s an agency that can actually get to them, but we could at least try.”

Corteo stood, walking quietly over to him, feet bare against the cool wood. He stopped in front of Angelo, smiling like the sunrise—beautiful and new, a symbol of a clean slate if he ever saw one.  Corteo leaned in, touching their foreheads together.

“Thank you,” he breathed. “Thank you.”

“Idiot. What reason do you have to thank me?  I’ve made these last three months miserable for you.”

Corteo pulled back, still smiling, a beautiful fool’s smile. “It was all for you.  I did everything for you, Angelo.  Any misery I felt was far less than anything you’ve gone through.  I’m sure of it.”

“You’ve lost family, too,” Angelo muttered, leaning back so their foreheads touched again, unwilling to let Corteo get too far away from him. “And Luce was like your brother, too.  I know you loved him.”

“I did.” He took his hand, rubbing his thumb in soothing circles.  “Seeing you again, I felt like I could breathe for the first time since you left.  I missed you every day you were gone.”

“Besides hate and loss, I felt nothing until I found you again,” he admitted. “This is the happiest I’ve been since they were taken from me.”

“Angelo…”

He cupped Corteo’s cheek, tilted his head, and pressed a single kiss to his lips. More chaste and friendly than anything.  No matter how much he wanted more, wanted _Corteo_ , he wouldn’t ruin what they had.  He couldn’t survive losing him.

Corteo laughed, sounding a little shaky, but leaned in, closing the distance once more, letting the kiss linger. His lips were chapped, but they felt perfect.  Angelo lost track of time as the kisses blurred into each other.

Corteo’s mouth was red and damp, his eyes were unfocused and dazed, his cheeks flushed. Angelo rubbed his thumb across his cheek, stroking his face before running through his hair, loose and un-styled and smooth to the touch.  Corteo’s eyes fell shut.

“I love you,” Angelo said. “I don’t think I could live without you.”

Corteo smiled, leaning in for another kiss. “I love you, too.”  He kissed him again.  “And you don’t have to.”

He had phone calls to make and lives to ruin, but after that. After that, there was nothing but the open road, Corteo at his side.  He wrapped his arms around him, holding on for a long moment, breathing him in.

He was never going to leave his side. With Corteo, he was finally home.


End file.
